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Anyone I’ve spoken to in the last few months will know that I went absolutely bonkers for a novel called Delirium. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s BLOODY AMAZING.

deliriumn
1. a state of excitement and mental confusion, often with hallucinations,
2. violent excitement,Latin: madness

If you loved Twilight (shhh… it’s ok.. it got us all…) then I advise you to run on down to your local book shop / click a button on Amazon and snap this one right up. There might not be any vampires or werewolves, but the world it’s set in is just as dark and the love story just as powerful. It envisions an existence where love has been declared a disease, where everyone undergoes a procedure on their 18th birthdays to remove the part of their brain that allows them to become ‘infected’. People are happy, ‘freed from desire’, to quote 90s pop chart legend Gala. But they’re also scarily numb to life. There’s no passion, no excitement. Basically, they’re about as excitable as the ginger one from Girls Aloud.

Nevertheless, 17-year-old Lena is counting down the days until her operation and the start of her new squeaky-clean hormone-free life. Until, that is… you guessed it! She meets the mysterious Alex, who turns everything well and truly upside down and inside out.

It’s just brilliant. You read it and want to be a teenager again, back in the days where romantic gestures didn’t revolve around washing up. The dystopian world that Oliver makes a gripping backdrop – based on a terrifyingly simple concept and backed up by snippets of ‘government propaganda’ that will send shivers down your spine. And the ending? It might surprise you…

But then again, maybe I’m biased. After all, the Stylist quote on the 1st page was written by me… (TOOT TOOT)

By the by… If you loved this one, you will probs be mad for MATCHED by Ally Condie.

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